Esther Friesner Quotes

Listen, Noel, I don’t believe in the occult—not the dime store demonism all the right people are barking about. They see devils everywhere but in the mirror, and they raise such a hunting howl about it that they distract attention from the real evils. What I do believe is that there are great powers walking this world—forces for true good, forces for evil we can’t begin to imagine. Too many of the small-souled can only feel good by proving how bad everyone else is. They find it easier to turn a searchlight on some imaginary wickedness outside than to strike a single inner spark that might show them their own hearts.

What a hero!"
"What an idiot!"
"What's the difference?

Don’t try weaseling through too many loopholes or one of them could turn into a noose.

This—this guy is dead now, right?
Marguerite shrugged. "Death is such a fragile thing. Who knows? I've heard rumors, but you can't depend on anything these days. The greatest wizards of antiquity turn up with less warning than Hamptons houseguests."

Adulthood is not just gauged by years survived. An adult is able to act independently, to resist manipulation, to make his own decisions. And to take the consequences.

Talent is no doxy to follow only where gold jingles. Even in the poorest hovels artists can be born as often as cutpurses.

He did not know the proper name by which to call preshrunk designer jeans, yet if left to his own lexical devices, he would name them Paradise. Like many another man of faith, he yearned for entry thereto.

You may hear the priests claim that revenge belongs to the gods and should never be the property of man.
Leave it to the gods to hog the best bits of life for themselves. When you have your enemies skewered, I think it would be wasteful not to stay and watch them writhe. I would even call it impolite. I value courtesy.

Someone should either make the rewards of good better or the punishment of evil worse. Poor planning on a grand scale, I call it. Nothing but poor planning.

Pigs possess a certain native intelligence and common sense by and large missing from our greater poets. When despair lays its clammy paws across their fevered porcine brows, they do not slump about composing sonnets; they take action.

When the majority is crazy, the sane ones are kept in asylums. She knew that well; she’d majored in World History.

I knew the Cardinal Rule of Experiments from Master Urion’s house: The wise mage never tampers with the order of things unless his circumstances are such that the worst possible result of the experiment will be no more disastrous than not performing the experiment at all.

A high-handed air of command was one of the first symptoms of increasing power-hunger.

Have lunch. It wasn’t anywhere near noon, but for food like this, they weren’t about to quibble. Suddenly the idea of going forth and smiting the heathen didn’t seem that attractive. Life is too short and sweet to waste it bludgeoning your brother into accepting your way of seeing Heaven.

“I won’t do it,” said Barti.
“Then we’ll kill you,” replied Aliska, who had grasped the fundamentals of religious debate pretty quickly.